The drying-out machines (industrial dehumidifiers) originally were promised for the first week in January. Drying-out would take up to six weeks, and 'reinstatement' (renovations, to the layman) would take around three weeks, so that everything would be fresh and sparkly by the end of March.
Instead, it seems there's been a shortage of machines due to lots of house-floods since last December. So, finally machines were delivered around the middle of April, and have been operating 24-hours a day, 7 days per week, since then. Every few days, I empty out the water that has been deposited into buckets by the dehumidifiers.
Every silver lining has a cloud... instead of a machine in every affected room, as promised, only two machines were delivered. One sits inside my front door, and is bump-into-able by unwary visitors. The other sits in the downstairs dining-room. The noise and vibration caused by their fans and other bits and bobs can be a bit wearing, especially when they dub over the occasional smoochy bits on the telly, or the luvverly choir of songbirds.
'The man' from 'the company' has visited a couple of times to check progress. His handheld machine gives a digital read-out of the humidity of whichever surface he places it on. On a scale of 100, a wall reading of 77 is a soggy "hmm, oh dear, needs more", another wall reading of 49 is a progressive "ha-mmh, not bad", and 19 (wooden surface) is "yeah, almost there" (apparently anything less than 10 would make wood overly dry).
I've been told that drying-out machines aren't needed upstairs, because the humid air can still be sucked into the downstairs machines, whose heat (ha!) travels upstairs, thereby doing its job anyway. However, I observed that the machines are so heavy that even two men would have difficulty carrying one upstairs... and since only one man delivered the machines and the same one man would be returning for check-up visits, the truth of decision-making matter spoke for itself. Still, he assures me that the walls, ceilings and floors should be dry enough by the first week in May (coinciding with his return from two weeks' holiday), but I'll keep an eye on what his digital readouts have to say about it.
Apparently, the next steps in 'reinstatement' will need four weeks lead-in time (me choosing materials, colours, etc, and 'the company' eventually taking delivery of said materials), and eight weeks on the job once started. That takes me to August, and doubtless the workers will be off on holiday at unsynchronised times, so realistically August is the earliest.
There's still the possibility that I'll have to move out for a while, when there's no electricity, or during the very messy and dusty bits (for example, when my kitchen ceiling is taken down, and food prep becomes a no-no apart from picnicky stuff like slicing cheese, unwrapping choccies, uncorking a cold sauvignon blanc). My insurance cover allowed me to move out months ago to rented digs, but I'm not keen to leave AndyMac Castle - a Scotsman's castle is his home, after all, and where's the joy in abandoning your home only to live along the road and round the corner? The songbirds probably sound different along the road, and 'my' ladybirds, bees and butterflies would miss me terribly, I'm guessing. Maybe a few days will be enough, in a nearby hotel, with spa, or even one without spa (aka Castle Doran).
Time will tell.
